Ingram v. Cowles
| Decision Date | 27 November 1889 |
| Parties | INGRAM v. COWLES et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Hammond & Field, for appellants.
S.O Lamb, for appellee.
The plaintiff does not bring the taxed property within the exceptions made in Pub.St. c. 11, § 20, cls. 1, 2, to the general rule that property is to be assessed to the owner in the city or town where he is an inhabitant on the 1st day of May. The saw-mill was not "machinery employed in any branch of manufacture," and "situated or employed" in Leverett, within the meaning of clause 2. It is settled that the purpose of the requirements of the first clause "is that the business shall be an established, and not a transient, one; that it shall have a local habitation in a town other than where the owner dwells." Loan Co. v. Boston, 137 Mass. 332 336; Hittinger v. Westford, 135 Mass. 258, 261; Stinson v. Boston, 125 Mass. 348, 351; Huckins v. Boston, 4 Cush. 543. See Hittinger v Boston, 139 Mass. 17. We think that this principle has some application to the second clause, also, although it is to be drawn from different words, and that machinery cannot be said to be "situated or employed" in a place merely because it is temporarily in use there upon the 1st day of May. The saw-mill in question was portable personal property, which had been moved from another town into Leverett in March, which in June was moved to a third town, and which has continued its migrations since that time. Furthermore, we hesitate to say that sawing logs into boards is a "branch of manufacture," and think it doubtful whether something more of a transformation of the raw material is not necessary to bring the employment within the clause. Hittinger v. Westford, 135 Mass. 258, 262.
The timber and sawed lumber do not fall within the first clause because, so far as appears, the owners had no such occupation of a manufactory, store, shop, or wharf in Leverett as the clause requires. They may have been mere licensees in the temporary use of the land on which the saw-mill stood. Stinson v. Boston, and other cases ubi supra. Furthermore, it is not contended that the saw-mill was a store or shop, (Loan Co. v. Boston, Hittinger v. Westford, ubi supra;) and it would be a shade more difficult to call it a manufactory than machinery employed in a branch of manufacture. As the whole tax on the personal property was unauthorized and...
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...(N. S.) 704, 117 Am. St. Rep. 79,10 Ann. Cas. 63. See, also, Rockefeller v. O'Brien (D. C.) 224 F. 541, 552. The cases of Ingram v. Cowles, 150 Mass. 155, 23 N. E. 48, and Bull v. Gowing, 85 N. H. 483,160 N. E. 475, denying the right to tax a portable sawmill or a steam shovel owned by a no......
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...and that temporary lodgment or migratory presence of such personal property is not enough to cause it to be ‘situated.’ Ingram v. Cowles, 150 Mass. 155, 157, 23 N. E. 48. See, also, Lathe v. Schoff, 60 N. H. 34. The deduction provided by our statute is not of all tangible property not physi......